Class and Ocupation.: Wright, Erik Olin

Theory and Society, vol. 9, núm. 1, 1980, pp. 177-214.
Class and Ocupation.
Wright, Erik Olin.
Cita:
Wright, Erik Olin (1980). Class and Ocupation. Theory and Society, 9 (1),
177-214.
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177
CLASS AND OCCUPATION
ERIK OLIN WRIGHT
Sociologists have generally regarded "class"and "occupation" as occupy-

ing essentially the same theoretical terrain. Indeed, the most common
operationalization of class is explicitly in terms of a typology of occupa-
tions: professional and technical occupations constitute the upper-middle
class, other white collar occupations comprise the middle class proper,
and manual occupations make up the working class. Even when classes
are not seen as defined simply by a typology of occupations, classes are
generally viewed as largely determined by occupations. Frank Parkin
expresses this view when he writes: "The backbone of the class structure,
and indeed of the entire reward system of modern Western society, is the
occupational order. Other sources of economic and symbolic advantage
do coexist alongside the occupational order, but for the vast majority of
the population these tend, at best, to be secondary to those deriving from
the division of labor."' While the expression "backbone" is rathervague,
nevertheless the basic proposition is clear: the occupational structure
fundamentally determines the class structure. For practical purposes,
therefore, the empirical investigation of class can revolve around the
investigation of occupational groupings.
Marxist theory adopts a totally different stance towards the relationship

between occupation and class. Occupations are understood as positions
defined within the technical relations of production; classes, on the other
hand, are defined by the social relations of production. Occupations are
thus defined by an array of technical functions or activities: a carpenter
transforms lumber into buildings; a doctor transforms sick people into
healthy people; a typist transforms blank paper into paper with words on
it, etc. Classes, on the other hand, can only bp defined in terms of their
social relationship to other classes, or in more precise terms, by their
location within the social relations of production. Workers sell their
labor power to capitalists and have their labor controlled by capital
within production; capitalists buy the labor power of workers and control
Department of Sociology, University of Wisconsin-Madison

178
that labor within the labor process. Workers are thus definable only in
terms of their social relationship to capitalists, not in terms of the techni-
cal content of their laboring activity. A carpenter, for example, could be
located in any of a number of different class positions: worker-carpenters
are wage-laborers for capital who lack any significant control over their
labor process; petty bourgeois carpenters are self-employed artisans
who sell carpentry services directly to consumers; manager-carpentersare
wage laborers who control the labor of other carpenters within produc-
tion (e.g., foremen). Within marxist theory, therefore, it is impossible to
define classes as clusters of occupations; class and occupation occupy
basically different theoretical spaces.
This paper will explore the complex relationship between class and occu-
pation from a marxist perspective. While there will be periodic references
to the contrast with nonmarxist conceptions of class, the central objec-
tive is not to engage in a battle of definitions with nonmarxists, but to
clarify these concepts within marxist theory itself. The heart of the analy-
sis, therefore, will be abstract and conceptual. This may give the paper a
rather formal and schematic flavor. The underlying premise is that this
kind of conceptual clarification is essential if empirical and historical
research is to procede in a clear and coherent way.
Before developing the theoretical argument itself, however, it will be

useful to examine the empirical relationship between class and occupa-
tion. While data can never directly validate or invalidate a definition,
nevertheless an examination of the actual distributions of occupations
within classes may add credibility to the theoretical claim that these
constitute distinct dimensions of social structure. This will be the task of
part one of the paper.
In part two, I will then elaborate more systematically the conceptual

relationship between class and occupation. This analysis will revolve
around the ways in which classes and occupations intersect organiza-
tions. In order to grasp this structure of relations it will be necessary to
discussat least briefly the logic of causation within marxist theory, since
incertain fundamental ways this logic departs from that of conventional
sociology. Once we have developed this notion of causation, it will then
bepossible to construct a formal model of determination of the relation-
ships among class, occupation and organization.
179
An Empirical Investigation of Class and Occupation
In order to study the empirical relationship between class positions and

occupational positions, it is first necessary to specify and operationalize
the concept of class within marxist theory. This is not such a simple task,
since there is such little consensus among marxists over the very meaning
of the concept "class," let alone over the definitions of specific classes.
For some theorists, "class"above all designates an historical process, and
any formal discussion of class structure is seen as theoretically invalid.2
For other marxists, any discussion of classes as historical actors or sub-
jects is inadmissble, and "class" is used exclusively to designate the struc-
ture of relations of exploitation and domination.3 Many marxists define
the working class very broadly to include virtually all wage-laborers
regardless of their function within the production process. Others restrict
the definition of the working class to productive labor,4 and still others
even more narrowly to manual, nonsupervisory productive labor.5 Since
I have intensively discussed these debates over the conceptualization of
class elsewhere,6 I will not review them here. What I will do is present in
a very condensed form one specific conceptualization of class within
these debates. This conceptualization, it should be noted, is not (yet)
widely accepted among contemporary marxist theorists. The analysis
which follows, therefore, should not be read as the marxist account of
class structure, but as one possible account within the marxist tradition.
Following this brief discussion of class, we will examine some provisional
data on the empirical relationship between class and occupation in the
United States.
Theoretical Criteria for Class Locations
The claim that classes are defined by the social relations of production
does not, by itself, provide an adequate basis for defining specific classes
within a specific social organization of production. The social relations of
production have many different aspects and can be characterized in many
different ways. Some more general principle for the decoding of the social
relations of production, therefore, is needed if we are to be able specify
the criteria for the classes which those relations determine.
Within marxist theory that overarching principle is the concept of

"exploitation". At the most abstract level, exploitation is defined as a
relationship within which the people in one social location are able to
appropriate at least part of the products of labor of people in another
180
social location. To emphasize that such exploitation involves the appro-

priation of the products of labor, rather than simply the products of
nature, exploitation is generally referred to as the appropriation of "sur-
plus labor," or, in the specific case of capitalism, "surplus value".7 In
these terms, the pivotal difference between different class structures cen-
ters on the different mechanisms by which such surplus labor is "pumped
out" of the direct producers (to use Marx's expression). In feudalism for
example, this mechanism is based on forcing the direct producers to work
a certain number of days a year on the land of the feudal overlord. In
capitalism, the mechanism is based on the capacity of capitalists to force
workers to perform more hours of labor on the job than is embodied in
the products which they can purchase with their wages.8 In the broadest
terms, then, classes are defined by their location within such relations of
exploitation.
Given this understanding of class and exploitation, the task of decoding

the social relations of production involves specifying the ways in which
those relations constitute the mechanism of exploitation. In the case of
capitalist relations of production, such a decoding generates three essen-
tial interdependent dimensions of production relations:9
(a) Social relations of control over money capital, i.e., control over the
flow of investments and the capital accumulation process.
(b) Social relations of control over physical capital, i.e., control over the
use of the physical means of production.
(c) Social relations of control over labor, i.e., control over supervision
and discipline within the labor process.
The word "control"in each of these dimensions must be understood in

termsof social relations of control. Control is not, strictly speaking, an
attribute of a position per se, but a dimension of the relationship be-
tween positions. Thus, the claim that a given position within the social
relationsof production involves control over money capital is a statement
about its relationship to other social positions (those which are excluded
from such control), not simply its relationship to a thing (money).'?
Thedistinctive capitalist mechanism of exploitation operates through the

exclusion of workers from all three of these relations of control and the
monopolization of such control by capitalists. The capacity to extract
surpluslabor from workers within the labor process, in other words,
requires(a) that workers do not own money capital, for otherwise they
would not need to come to work (they could themselves invest such
181
money as capital); (b) that they do not control physical capital, for if they
did they could use that physical capital to produce products for their own
use; (c) that they do not control the labor process itself, for if they did
they could reduce the pace of work to the point that no surplus labor
would be performed. Capitalist exploitation, and the class structure
which such relations of exploitation determine, is thus the specific conse-
quence of this combination of these three dimensions of social relations
of production.
If the capitalist social system is analyzed at the highest level of abstrac-

tion - which marxists refer to as the level of the mode of production -
then the class structure is defined by a perfect polarization on all three of
these dimensions of the social relations of production. Capitalists and
workers thus constitute the only class locations. If we move to a more
concrete level of analysis, however, other class locations must enter the
story for two basic reasons. First, no concrete capitalist society is charac-
terized only by the pure capitalist mode of production. In particular,
simple commodity production - production for the market by self-em-
ployed producers who employ no workers - continues to be a reality in all
capitalist societies. Such producers define the petty bourgeois class loca-
tion.
Secondly, the simple model of polarized class locations is inadequate for

understanding concrete capitalist societies because the three dimensions
of social relations of production need not perfectly coincide in actual
Capitalist mode of Simple commodity

production production
| Bourgeoisie |. ..
JSmall employers'
r---J--- ?-_---- --j^Î
[ Managers and] ^ ' orei<
',supervisors i r_________ - P g3
-i--
. I Semni-autonomnous i
, ^^-"---wage-earners_ J
| Proletariat ~
I i Classes
f ....-- Contradictory locations

L- - - -J within class rRlations
Figure 1: The basic class relations of capitalist society.

182
units of production. Such situations of noncorrespondence between the

three dimensions generates a series of additional class locations which we
will refer to as contradictory locations within class relations. These are
illustrated schematically in Figure 1.
Three such contradictory locations are particularly important in advan-

ced capitalist societies: (jl) managers and supervisors occupy a contradic-
tory location between the working class and the capitalist class: like
capitalists they control the labor of workers and at least some of the
physical means of production, but like workers they are excluded from
control over the accumulation process as a whole and are dominated
within production by capital; (2) small employers occupy a contradictory
location between the petty bourgeoisie and the capitalist class: like the
petty bourgeoisie they are directly engaged in the process of production
and own their own means of production, but like capitalists they employ
and exploit wage labor, although in sufficiently limited quantities to be
unable to accumulate capital; (3) semi-autonomous employees occupy a
contradictory location between the petty bourgeoisie and the working
class: like workers they are employed by capital and dominated by capital
within the production process, but like the petty bourgeoisie they retain
real control over certain key aspects of the labor process, particularly
overaspects of what they produce (not merely how they produce). Design-
ers or engineers, in these terms, would generally be semi-autonomous
employees since they typically have some real control over the design of
products,whereas a draughtsman whose job consists of the precise trans-
lation of design specifications from one medium to another, would be a
worker.(Note that the distinction between semi-autonomous employees
and workers is not based on skill-level, or on income. A draughtsman or
an airline pilot is an extremely skilled position and may be quite well
paid, but they both lack any meaningful control over what they produce
and thus would generally be located within the working class.ll)
Itis important to understand why these positions are called "contradic-

tory locations" within class relations and not simply "ambiguous" loca-
tionsor "intermediate strata" or "middleclasses." They are contradictory
inthe precise sense that they are located simultaneously in two classes
and thus share basic class interests with both of these classes. (Strictly
speaking, therefore, the spacial metaphor in Figure 1is somewhat mis-
leadingsince it suggests that the various contradictory locations are "be-
tween" other classes rather than located in more than one class.)
Managers/supervisors have one foot in the bourgeoisie and one in the
workingclass, and this means that their class interests are objectively torn
183
between these two classes. Similarly,
semi-autonomous employees share
class interests with the petty
bourgeoisie and the working class. The
contradictory quality of the class location of
positions implies that
they will play an especially ambiguous role such
in class struggle, at times
siding with the working
class, at times opposing it.12 Any complete
analysis of the class structure of advanced
capitalist societies must thus
notsimply investigate the size of the
working class and the bourgeoisie,
butthe shape and magnitude of these contradictory locations within
class
relationsas well.
OperationalizingClass Relations
Itis one thing to elaborate a
definition of classes; it is quite another to
developan adequate
areimmediately apparent. operationalization of that definition. Two problems
First,it should beclear from the above discus-
sionof contradictory class locations
that the precise boundary criteria
betweencontradictory locations and the
proper class locations of capi-
talistsociety are rather ambiguous.
example, how much "autonomy"
isnecessary to define a worker as For
semi-autonomous, as occupying a
contradictory location between the working class and the
sie? petty bourgeoi-
Surely the criterion of absolutely any
autonomy is too broad. While
historical data on the labor process are rather
meager, it is unlikely that
more than a small fraction of the
working class was ever characterized by
the classic
image of the fully proletarianized worker, totally under the
controlof the capitalist through a minutely subdividing labor
governedbyprinciples of scientific process
management. Most workers, most of
thetime, have been able to maintain at least
some residual control over
their immediate labor process. Similarly, it would
restrictthe concept of "semi-autonomy" to beinappropriate to
positions which, like univer-
sity
professors, have extremely high levels of control
over the pace of
work, the scheduling of work, the content
of work,
thatthere is no absolute criterion which etc. The difficulty is
defines how much control is
sufficientto exclude a position from the
proletariat. A certain arbitrari-
ness,therefore, will inevitably enter into any
attempt to measure this
semi-autonomous class location. Similar problems
boundaries of the other contradictory occur in specifying the
locations. While this does not
imply that it is impossible to
more operationalize such class locations - any
than it is impossible to define
"mammals" because of the existence
oftheplatypus - it does mean that any estimate of the
size of a given class
location will involve upper and lower bounds
rather than a single figure.
Apart
from the problem of the arbitrariness
of formal criteria for boun-
184
daries, a second problem in operationalizing class relations centers on the

difficulty of getting any data on the relevant dimensions of social rela-
tions of production. The United States census asks virtually no
questions
which tap social relations of production other than the formal criterion of
being self-employed or not. Certainly no explicit questions are asked
about
autonomy, control over the labor process, control over physical
means of production, etc. Beyond the census, I am aware of no data sets
based on national random samples which include systematic, objective
data on all the dimensions of social relations of production needed to
define class locations.13
Inorder to investigate the relationship between class locations and occu-

pation, therefore, it will be necessary to rely on data which only approxi-
matesthe theoretical schema laid out above. One such data set is the 1969
Instituteof Social Research Survey of Working Conditions, a national
random sample of 1,533 adults active in the labor force. The central
purposeof this survey was to investigate such questions as
job satisfac-
tion, job stress, and other quality of lifeissues. The questionnaire, how-
ever, contained a number of items which make possible a rough
operationalizationof the classes in Figure 1. The criteria used in this
operationalizationare indicated in Table 1. (All Tables appear at the end
of the article.) Several comments on these criteria are
necessary: (a)
Employers.Nearly 80% of the employers in the sample employed less
than 10workers. In effect, nearly all of these employers fall within the
contradictorylocation between the bourgeoisie and the petty bourgeoisie.
Throughoutthe rest of this analysis, therefore, I will refer to them as
"smallemployers".
(b)Managers/supervisors. This category is operationalized by the simple

question:"Do you supervise anybody as part of your
job?"This is clearly
anextremely vague supervision criterion, and will certainly include at
leastsome people who are nominal supervisors with essentially no
genuineauthority. One of the difficulties with this question is that a
majorityof teachers respond "yes" to the question. From the point of
viewof marxist theory, the supervision of students and the supervision of
laborare qualitatively different kinds of social relationships, and teachers
shouldnot be placed in the same position as managers (unless, of course,
theyactually occupy administrative posts as well).'4 As a result, I have
placedall teachers in the nonsupervisory category. While this will
undoubtedlyresult in the misclassification of some teachers who are
genuinemanagers/supervisors it is unavoidable with the available data.
185
(c) Semi-autonomous employees. Respondents were given a list of des-

criptions of jobs, and asked to indicate whether the
description was "a
lot," "somewhat,""a little," or "not at
all" like their job. Two of these job
descriptions will be used to define the semi-autonomous
class location:
(1)"a job that allows you a lot of freedom as to how
you do your work";
(2)"a job that allows you to make a lot of decisions
on your own." These
questions are obviously extremely subjective, since
it is up to each re-
spondent to define what "a lot" means, what
"freedom" means, what
"decisions"means, and so on.
Thefact that 46% of the respondents say
thathaving a lot of freedom characterizes
their job "a lot," and 49% say
that making a lot of decisions describes
their job "a lot" reflects the
subjectivequality of the questions. There
appears to be a tendency for
peopleto answer such questions relative to the
range of possible freedom
anddecision-making for their type of
job, rather than relative to all jobs.
Forpurposes of the present analysis, I will
assume that individuals within
positionswhich are genuinely semi-autonomous
will answer "a lot" to
bothof these subjective
job descriptions. If anything, given the vague-
nessof these autonomy questions, this will
probably overestimate the
numberof people in the semi-autonomous
category.
Theseoperational measures of class are
obviously fraught with difficul-
ties.In particular, the criterion for the
managerial location is far too
vague and inclusive, and the criterion for the
semi-autonomous employee
classlocation is too subjective. As a result,
therefore, all of the findings
which follow must
beinterpreted as entirely provisional. At most they
enable us to get a general sense of the contours of
the class structure and
its
relationship to the occupational structure.
Size of Class Locations

The
Before
turning to the
occupational-class distributions, it will be useful to
examine the overall shape of the American class
structure. Figure 2
presents
estimates of the size of different class locations
within the eco-
nomicallyactive working population. Table 2 indicates
for z5 the criteria used
the high and low estimates in Figure 2.
These data indicate that even
when
the most restrictive definition of the
working class is adopted - i.e.,
adefinitionwhich excludes from the
working class all employees who
indicate
that they have any real autonomy on the
in any way supervise someone else on
they job whatsoever or that
the over
- 40% of the
economically active population still falls within thejob
working class. If this
definition
is slightly relaxed, this proportion
increases to around 50%.
to
Contrary the claims of many post-industrial
theorists, the working
186
Bourgeoisie | \ r
1- 2%
L
i Smallemployers I
Top managers L 6-7%
Imiddle managers II
technocrats \
1L _11-17%
________
- - Pe t t y bo urg e o is ie
Bottom 6.0 ?/o
i ana3gers i
Iforemen and line I
Isupervisors I
I 13-23?%/ r--I- ....
-L __ T ... ..--- - Semi-autonomous I
I | / _I employees
Proletariat
41-54%
r 5-11% .
Figure2: Distribution of the economically active population into

contradictory class
locations.
DataSource: Survey of Working Conditions
(1969).
Note:See Table 2 for explanations of high and low
estimates.
class,when understood in terms of common positions within the

social
relationsof production, remains by far the largest class within the
United
States,and in all probability constitutes an absolute
majority of the
population.16
Classand Occupation
Table3 presents the distributions of occupations within class

categories
andthe distributions of classes within occupational
categories.
Severalgeneral conclusions can be drawn from this table.

First, the
resultsindicate that most broad occupational categories have rather
heterogeneousclass competitions (see Table 3.B). Some
occupational
categories,indeed, have class distributions very similar to the population
asa whole. This is most notably the case
among crafts occupations.
Withinthe technical division of labor, knowing that an individual
is a
craftsperson tells you that they physically transform nature into
products
through the application of skilled labor. This technical
function, how-
ever,canbe performed in a variety of positions within social relations
of
production: 39% of all craftspersons are workers, 38% are managers/su-
pervisors,15%are semi-autonomous employees, 5% are petty bourgeois
and3% are actually small employers. These results support the general
theoretical
claim that class and occupation are different aspects of social
structure,
different dimensions of the social relations which define the
"emptyplaces" within social production.
187
This is not to say that the
relationship between class and occupation is
random. Our second general conclusion is
that there are very different
occupational distributions within different classes.
The working class is
clearly dominated by manual occupations: over
60% of all workers are
in manual occupations, compared to
48% of semi-autonomous employ-
ees, 45% of managers/supervisors, 52% of
petty bourgeois (including
farmers)and 22% of all employers. On the other
hand, only 11%of the
workingclass are in upper white collar
occupations compared to 31%
of
semi-autonomous employees, 35% of
managers/supervisors, 40% of
pettybourgeois and 76% of employers.
Thisuneven distribution of
occupations and classes is even more strik-
inglyrevealed if we look at the distribution of
classes within occupations:
71%of all unskilled laborers are in the
working class, whereas only 14%
ofall professionals are workers. In
contrast, only 17%of all laborers are
managers/supervisorscompared to 69% of all
professionals.
Thecommon association of the
working class with manual occupations,
andnonmanual occupations with the
"middle" class, is thus not a
totallyunrealistic picture. The process of
laborprocess has certainly moved proletarianization within the
much more rapidly among most
manual occupations than among white collar
occupations. Whether or
not
nonmanual occupations will undergo as
pervasive a process of prole-
tarianization
in the future remains to be but for the moment it is
that the heart of the working class seen,
clear
remains embedded in manual
occupations within the technical relations of
production.
However, it is important not to take this
observation too far. The data in
Table3B also indicate that there are
very different levels of proletariani-
zationamong white collar occupations and among
manual occupations.
Our
third general conclusion is that lower
white collar occupations are
muchmore like lower blue collar occupations in
their class distributions
than
they are like upper white collar
and that crafts blue
collaroccupations are much moreoccupations,
like technician white collar
occupationsthan they are like lower blue collar
of occupations. Nearly 60%
allpeople in clerical occupations and
collar
occupations fall into the working class, 64%of people in lower blue
compared to only 17%of
in upper white collar occupations.
people
Among both craftspersons and
on the other hand,
technicians, approximately 39% are workers; 12%of
all
technicians and 15%of craftspersons are
and of technicians and 38%of semi-autonomous employees;
45% craftspersonsare managers/ supervisors.
188
Taking these various findings together, it is clearly inappropriate to

globally identify manual labor with the working class and nonmanual
labor with the "middle class" (contradictory class locations). If one wants
to make a general statement about the class character of specific
occupational categories, then one would have to say that clerical
occupations tend to be working class along with semi-skilled and
unskilled manual occupations, while crafts occupations along with
technical occupations tend to be much more concentrated in
contradictory class locations.'7
A final general conclusion from these data centers on differences be-

tween men and women (see Tables 4 and 5): in every occupational cate-
gory, women are more proletarianized than men. Whereas only 26% of all
salesmen fall into the working class, 63%of all saleswomen are workers.
Similarly, 53% of all male operatives compared to nearly 80% of female
operatives fall into the working class. Much of this sex difference in
proletarianizationcenters on the managerial/supervisory category. While
approximately 11% of all men and 11% of all women fall into the semi-
autonomous employee category, 38% of all men compared to only 26% of
all women fall into the managerial/supervisory class location. This same
result generally holds within each broad occupational category (with the
exception of the managerial occupation, in which 42% of both men and
women are in managerial class locations). These results suggest that
much of the greater proletarianization of women in the labor force is a
consequence of sexist patterns in recruitment into and promotion up
authority structures within the social relations of production. These
resultsalso suggest that the relationship between the technical and social
relations of production is itself variable. A given technical function
(position) may be more or less proletarianized depending upon its rela-
tionship to the sexual division of labor.18This lends further support to
thegeneral conceptual claim that classes and occupations are qualitative-
ly different aspects of social structure and that the former cannot be
viewed as aggregations of the latter.
A Model of Determination of Class and Occupation
Whilethe decoding and analysis of class structure plays an important role

in marxist theory, marxism is not primarily a theory about class struc-
tureper se. Rather, its central preoccupations are classformation, class
struggleand social change.19 Theaccount of classstructures enters into
the theory primarily as part of the explanation of the constraints on
189
social change and the structural foundations
of class formations. The
conceptual distinction between class and
occupation, therefore, is of sub-
stantive interest largely to the extent that it
can inform discussions of
class formation and conflict.
The rest of this paper will try to chart

out a general framework for
studyingthe relationship of class structure and the
tothe process of class formation. This occupational structure
effort should be read as part of a
largertheoretical project of specifying the structure
of determination of
classformation and class struggle in
contemporary capitalism. This broad-
erproject includes investigations of
ideology and consciousness forma-
tion,contradictions of accumulation, the state and
politics. Inthe present
discussionwe will largely ignore these issues
and focus instead on the
narrowerquestion of the ways in which the
social and technical division
oflabor intersect in the determination
of class formation.
Toexplore this intersection, we will need

to add two additional elements
toour theoretical analysis. First, we will
need to introduce the concept of
"organization"into the discussion, and then examine the
betweenclasses and occupations on the one relationship
hand and organizations on
theother. Second, we will need to discuss
in some detail the concept of
"determination" within marxist theory in order to
content adequately specify the
of the causal relationships between
class, occupation and organi-
zation.
Once we have done this we will be able to
develop a formal model
of
determination among these concepts.
Class
and Organization
Oneof the fundamental distinctions within
classical marxist theory has
beenbetween a class-in-itself and a class-for-itself.
The former is gen-
erally
understood as structurally defined locations within
the social rela-
tions
of production. The latter, on the
other hand, implies classes
organized
as social forces, as collective actors in
history.20
This
distinction between a class-in-itself and
termsof the concept of organization. A for-itself can be recast in
classes class-in-itself can be defined as
within organizations; a class-for-itself as organizations within
classes.
The social relations of production which
define class positions are
locatedwithin organizations, principally
enterprises (i.e., capitalist eco-
nomicorganizations), but also political and ideological
state apparatuses). The "empty places"
(i.e., organizations
defined by those social rela-
tions
of production to use Adam
- Przeworski's apt expression are -
190
therefore empty places within organizations. A class-for-itself, on the

other hand, presupposes that these empty places have been formed into
class organizations in their own right. In the case of a fully developed
class-for-itself, such organizations are formed at the societal level and are
capable of concentrated political struggles. The transformation of a class-
in-itself into a class-for-itself (or what is often called the process of class
formation) can thus be viewed as the process by which class positions
within organizations are formed into organizations within classes.2'
This way of understanding the intersection of class and organization

undermines the traditional distinction in the sociology of organizations
between the "organization" and its "environment".Classes are simulta-
neously situated within organizations (class positions or a class-in-itself)
and organized across enterprises (class formation or a class-for-itself).
Classes are therefore neither internal nor external to organizations; they
intersect organizations. Any simple dualistic conception of organizations
facing an external social environment obscures this interconnection.22
Firm A Firm B
Capital Capital
Labor Labor
Firm A Trade Firm B

association
/ \ Union |
o Capitalist class position

* Working class position
/|\ Relations of domination/subordination (class relations)
.... Relations of solidarity/cooperation (relations within classes)
Organizations which define class locations

D
(classes within organization)
I- organizations which define class formation

(organizations within classes)
Figure 3: Classes within organizations and organizations within classes.

191
A simple illustration may help to clarify this conception of class

forma-
tion intersecting organizations (see Figure 3). Capitalist firms are
the site
of the social relations of production, of the
social relations which define
the basic class structure of capitalist society. Unions, on the other
hand,
are the site of certain important social relations within the
working class,
and thus of social relations which determine aspects of the class
forma-
tion of workers. The intersection of these two structures of
relations can
be represented in a spacial metaphor, using vertical lines to
designate
social relations between classes and horizontal lines to
represent social
relations within classes.
In Figure 3A classes have been determined within capitalist firms,but

nosocial relations within classes have yet been
forged. Such a situation
representsthe formal model of perfect competition between units of
capitaland complete atomization of the working class. Each worker has
astrictly individual relationship to capital and is related to
other workers
onlythrough market competition and technical cooperation. In
Figure
3Bsocial relations within classes have been formed
through the creation
of organizations-within-classes. Unions create a structure
of social
relationsamong working class positions; trade associations
create a
structureof social relations among capitalist class positions.23Whereas
in
Figure3A working class positions are located within a single nexus of
relations relations of domination/subordination to
capital in
Figure3B they are located within a double nexus of relations. In this
contextit becomes impossible to sustain the formal distinction
between
anorganization and its environment. Unions -class
formations of the
workingclass - are neither internal nor external to the firm; they intersect
thefirm.24
Occupationsand Organizations
Inthe analysis of the process by which classes within

organizations are
formedinto organizations within classes, the
relationship between class
andoccupation plays a particularly important role.
Capitalist organiza-
tions(enterprises and bureaucracies) are not only structured by the social
relationsof production, but by the technical
relations of production as
well.
The "empty places" within production which are filled
by individual
incumbents are therefore determined by occupational relations as well
as
class
relations. This dual character of positions within organizations
as
simultaneously structured by class relations and occupational relations
hasseveral possible effects on the process of class formation.
192
(1) Occupational positions form the potential basis for persistent divi-
sions within the working class. In spite of occupying a common location
within the social relations of production, significant internal divisions
exist within all working classes. There are a number of different structur-
al bases for these internal divisions: racial and ethnic divisions; employ-
ment in monopoly, competitive or state sectors of the economy;25
unionized versus ununionized employment; levels of skill, income, educa-
tion, status of different categories of workers. One of the central prob-
lems of a class analysis is to sort out the relative salience of these different
sources of fractionation of the working class and analyse the conditions
under which such divisions may be transcended.
The occupational structure is implicated in many of these sources of

segmentation within the working class. In particular, the technical di-
vision of labor is closely tied to income and status divisions within the
working class.
Certainoccupational positions have much more favorable market situa-

tions than others, and thus are able to command higher wages within
exchange relations. In part this may reflect the additional costs of pro-
ducingskills required by the technical functions of that occupation, but
higherincomes may also be the result of the capacity of the incumbents of
thatoccupation to restrict the supply of people able to fill the occupation-
alpositions. Such situations of persistent undersupply of labor power
keepthe wages associated with those positions permanently above the
"valueof labor power". This is characteristic of many professional and
semi-professionaloccupations, but it also occurs in certain skilled crafts
occupationsat the heart of the working class. Such income privileges
associatedwith different positions in the technical division of labor tend
to underwrite divisions within the working class along occupational
lines.26
Suchoccupational divisions are further reinforced when advantages in

marketsituations overlap ideological divisions within classes. Occupa-
tions,as every sociologist knows, differ markedly in their social status,
andsuch status differentials have the effect of intensifying the divisions
withinclasses on the basis of occupation. Indeed, the relative sharpness
ofthe status difference between white collar (or mental labor) occupa-
tionsand blue collar (manual labor) occupations has led many sociolo-
giststo treat this division as a fundamental division between classes
ratherthan an internal division within the working class.
193
As a result of the intersection of market and ideological relations with the

technical division of labor, occupational positions have frequently for-
med the basis for significant strata within the working class in capitalist
societies.27
(2) Occupational strata within classes may systematically reinforce other

sources of intra-class cleavage. Racial, ethnic, national, linguistic and/or
religious cleavages are pervasive realities in nearly all capitalist socie-
ties.28 But they do not always form the basis of intra-class divisions. To
the extent that such social divisions systematically overlap salient di-
visions in the technical division of labor, the likelihood that they would
become the basis for sharp divisions within the working class would be
expected to increase. At times, in fact, the race and ethnic typing of jobs
has been a self-conscious strategy of the capitalist class to accentuate
divisions within the working class. But even where it is not a collective
strategy of the capitalist class, the linkage between social cleavage and the
technical division of labor tends to undermine unity within the working
class.
(3) Occupational positions may not simply form a structural basis for
segments or strata within classes; they may also compete with class as the
basis for organizing the empty places within production. To the extent
that they are formed into collective organizations, occupational groups
can serve to obscure class issues, class divisions, class conflicts. The
classic example of this is the formation of farmers into collective organi-
zations which obscure the qualitatively different class situation of share-
croppers, small family farms, corporate farms, etc. Similarly, the for-
mation of all physicians into professional associations such as the
AMA obscures the quite different class situation of physicians in the state
sector, in large hospitals and in private practice. Such professional-oc-
cupational formation probably contributes to the general lack of support
for strikes by hospital workers and nurses on the part of physicians.
(4) Occupational groupings may, under certain circumstances, function

as a vehicle for class formation rather than as a competitor to class
formation. So far we have examined various ways in which the structure
of occupations undermines the process of class formation. But this is not
inevitably the case. In certain conditions in early capitalism, for example,
the occupational identities of artisans served as a basis for solidarities
which could be mobilized for class conflicts, not simply occupational
conflicts. Aminzade29shows,how artisans in factories in Toulouse in the
nineteenth century could mobilize resources from traditional artisanal
194
occupational associations for factory-wide struggles of workers. In con-

temporary capitalism, the occasional support given by union members in
one trade for the strikes of workers in another also reflects the use of
occupationally rooted resources for class-based conflicts.
These complex ways in which the technical division of labor impinges on

the process of class formation show that it is impossible to deduce forms
of class struggle and class formation directly from an analysis of class
structure. The same essential class structure will support widely different
forms of struggle and formation depending upon its interconnection with
the occupational structure and other aspects of social structure.
I will now try to take these general observations and restate them more
systematically in terms of a formal model of determination.
A Model of Determination of Class, Occupation and Organization
To briefly recapitulate the argument thus far: classes are defined by the
social relations of production, occupations by the technical relations of
production. Both of these relations are decisive dimensions of the internal
structure of capitalist organizations of production, and both of them
determine the empty places within production. In the process by which
classes within organizations (a class-in-itself) are transformed into
organizations within classes (a class-for-itself), the precise relationship
between class and occupation plays an important role, by creating
internal strata within classes, by potentially obscuring basic class
divisions, and, under certain conditions, by providing resources for class
conflict.
In order to recast this argument as a formal model of determination, it is

necessary to introduce the concept of"mode of determination".30From
its inception, marxist social science has rejected the narrow temporal
notion of causation which is dominant in the social sciences, in which
causes and effects are all arranged in a simple temporal sequence. While
Marx himself never systematically elaborated the logic of causation in his
own work, subsequent marxists have spent considerable energy in devel-
oping a methodology based on a heterogeneous conception of determi-
nation. Sometimes this is referred to as "dialectical causation," other
times as "structuralcausation". I will use the expression "modes of deter-
mination" in order to emphasize the plurality of types of causes within
marxist theory.
195
In our present discussion, four different modes of determination are

particularly important: structural limitation; selection; mediation; and
transformation. A complete typology of determination would include
several other modes of determination as well, but for the present pur-
poses, we can restrict the analysis to these four.
Structural limitation. Structural limitation is a mode of determination in

which one structure or process establishes limits of variation on another
structure or process. Given a particular form of the determining struc-
ture, the determined structure can only vary within specific limits. It
should be noted that there is no necessary temporal ordering in this
relation. The limiting structure is not in any sense temporally prior to the
limited structure. Thus, while I will argue that the class structure sets
limits on the occupational structure (i.e., the social relations of produc-
tion limit the technical relations of production), this does not imply that
the class structure exists prior to the occupational structure.
Selection. Selection can be thought of as the determination of limits

within limits. It is the mode of determination in which one structure
"selects" specific outcomes or ranges of outcomes within limits establish-
ed by some other process. In our present analysis, the occupational
structure has a selection effect on class formation within limits estab-
lished by class structure. That is, the basic structure of class relations
determines the broadest limits on the forms of organization of classes,
but within those limits the occupational structure can have a significant
influence on class formation.
Mediation. Mediation constitutes a mode of determintion in which one

structure or process shapes the causal relationship between two other
processes. This must not be confused with the conventional notion of an
"intervening variable" in which a variable functions as an intermediate
cause between some antecedent cause and a final effect. An intervening
variable can be schematically pictured as follows: A --.. B --> C
where B intervenes between A and C. A relationship of mediation, in
contrast, would be represented in the following way:
A v > C
In this case B determines the effects of A on C. In our analysis of class and
occupation, both limitation and selection determinations are themselves
196
mode of determination which we will consider. Transformation consti-

tutes a relation of determination through which the structureswhich estab-
lish different limits on the occupational structure as well as different
limits on forms of class organization. Class struggle also mediates the
selection effects of the occupational structure on class organization. Such
mediation relationships are of decisive importance, for they imply that
the conscious forms of struggle by organized classes can alter the ways in
which social structures have their effects.
Transformation. Class consciousness also plays a central role in the final

mode of determination which we will consider. Transformation consti-
tutes a relation of determination through which the structureswhich estab-
lish limits and selections are themselves modified. This is different from
mediation, in which the structure remains unchanged but its effects are
influenced. Transformation involves the direct restructuring of social
structuresthemselves. When marxists say that the object of class struggle
is ultimately class structure, they are referring to transformation as a
mode of determination.
If we take these four modes of determination together, we can use them

to construct a model of determination which links class structure,
occupational structure, class organization and class struggle. This model
of determination is presented in Figure 4. This model, of course, is
radically incomplete in a number of crucial respects. Ideology, politics,
the state, accumulation - none of these explicitly appear in the relations
of determinations depicted in Figure 4. In order to be complete, the
specific model in this figure would have to intersect a number of parallel
models which contained these elements as well. This model, therefore,
Figure4: Model of determination of class, occupation and organization.

197
must be read as a schematic representation of some of the salient

determinations in the process of class formation, not as an exhaustive
map of those determinations.3'
Several facets of this model are especially important to note: (1)

Class Structure Limits Occupational Structure. The class structure
(social relations of production) sets the basic limits of variation on the
occupational structure (technical relations of production). This limiting
relationship should be understood in two ways. First, statically, certain
forms of the technical division of labor are simply impossible by virtue of
a given structure of class relations. For example, the class relations of
advanced monopoly capitalism involve the systematic proletarianization
of wage-laborers, and in particular the general separation of planning
activities (control over allocation of resources) and execution activities.
This implies that with rare exceptions, occupational positions (i.e., clus-
ters of technical functions within a single job) will tend not to combine
mental and manual labor. The specific contours of the technical division
of labor, therefore, are logically constrained by the nature of the social
division of labor. Second, historically, as the class structure changes, the
possible forms of the technical division of labor also change. As the size
and density of the working class expanded with industrial capitalism,
for example, the scope for a detailed technical division of labor also ex-
panded.
(2) Class Structure Limits Class Formation. The social relations of pro-
duction also set the basic limits on the formations of organizations within
classes. For example, as long as capitalist social relations of production
were primarily organized in small shops and cottage industry, the forma-
tion of industrial trade unions was basically outside of the limits of
structural possibility. Or, to take a different sort of example, where there
is a large proportion of all wage laborers in contradictory locations
within class relations, it may be much more difficult to organize the
working class itself into a class party (either a revolutionary or reformist
party), since it will be more difficult for individual workers to see the class
structure as a polarized, antagonistic structure of class domination. To
the extent that the existence of contradictory'locations obscures class
interests, they may place real limits on the possibility of working class
formation at the political level.32
(3) Occupational Structure Selects Class Formation and Class Struggle.

The occupational structure operates as a selection determinant of both
class formation and class struggle. Depending upon the specific relation-
198
shipbetween the technical relations of production and the social relations

of production, this selection process may either strengthen or undermine
workingclass formation. For example, where the occupational structure
generatesa privileged strata of workers, it may be much more difficult in
generalto forge a broad unity within the working classthan in situations
whereoccupational divisions are not tied to sharp differences in income,
job security, etc. Similarly, the more closely linked are occupational divi-
sions to other sources of social cleavage (race, ethnicity, religion, etc.),
themore difficult it will beto create broad, class-wideorganizations of the
working class. On the other hand, to the extent that the technical division
of labor does not demarcate significant divisions within the working
class, class formation will be easier, and the forms of class struggle may
revolve more consistently around fundamental class issues. Within the
limits established by the underlying class structure of the society, there-
fore, the occupational structure may effect (select) forms of class struggle
and class formation.
(4) Class Formation Limits Class Struggle. The basic limits on classstrug-
gle are not set directly by the class structure but rather by the forms of
organization of classes. Without certain forms of organization, certain
types of struggle are simply impossible, regardless of the underlying class
structure. Collective bargaining over economistic demands as a form of
struggle presupposes union organizations; electoral struggles over imme-
diate class interests presuppose the existence of working class parties.33
This is precisely why many of the bitterest forms of class struggle center on
the establishment and legitimation of different organizations of the work-
ing class. The struggle for the creation of unions, for example, is typically
much sharper and bloodier than the struggle over various objectives once
unions are in place. The introduction of new forms of organization of
classes transforms the terrain upon which subsequent struggles are fought
and thus often meets with the staunchest resistance by ruling classes.
(5) Class Structure Selects Class Struggle. Within the limits established
by the forms of organizations-within-class, the class structure, like the
occupational structure, acts as a selection determinant on forms of class
struggle. The extent to which a working class political party, for example,
organizes its activity around immediate or fundamental class interests
may be shaped by the relative size of the contradictory locations within
class relations among wage-laborers. Fundamental class interests would
tend to highlight the contradictory character of the potential alliances
between workers and people in contradictory class locations near the
working class, and thus make electoral gains more difficult. As Adam
199
Przeworski34has brilliantly argued, working class electoral parties always

face the dilemma of choosing between strategies which maximize their
overall vote and strategies, which maximize their working class base.
Where contradictory locations are large, this dilemma is intensified. In
this way the class structure acts as a selection process on forms of class
struggle.35
(6) Class Struggle Mediations. Class struggle mediates all of the relations
of determination between the structural elements of the model. The conse-
quences of a given structure of production relations for the technical
relations of production or for class organization, therefore, cannot be
considered directly given by the class structure itself. Those consequences
- the ways in which the class structure limits the occupational structure
and class formation - are themselves shaped by the actual, historical
forms of struggle that exist within those structures. For example, if capi-
tal attempts to deal with economic crisis through a general assault on the
living standards of all wage-earners, this may increase the possibilities of
class alliances between the working class and contradictory class loca-
tions. If on the other hand, an attempt is made by the capitalist class to
concentrate the effects of crisis on the weakest segments of the working
class, it is possible that it could deepen the conflict of interest between
certain contradictory locations and workers. The strategies of capital -
its practices within the class struggle - thus mediate the effects of class
structure on working class formation. But equally, the strategies of the
working class within the class struggle mediate those effects. Where work-
ers organize their demands around fundamental class interests, interests
which call into question the capitalist mode of production itself, the
possibilities of a cohesive class organization of the dominant class increas-
es. When workers are either relatively passive or restrict their demands
to immediate interests, on the other hand, the various fractions of the
capitalist class are much more likely to be hostile to each other and
engaged in serious political and economic conflict. The effects of the
class structure on the class formation of the bourgeoisie is thus mediated
by the forms of struggle of the working class.
(7) Class Struggle Transformations. Finally, and in the end perhaps most
critically, class struggle acts as a transformation determinant directly
on each of the structural elements in the model. When marxists say that
class struggle is the "motor" of history, it is largely because of the trans-
formative role that class struggle plays in shaping and reshaping the
social structure itself. In every period of capitalist development, the deter-
mination of the very form of working class organizations has been a
200
decisive object of class struggle. This has included such things as struggles
over union rights, over freedom of political parties, and periodically over
new forms of class organization within production itself (workers' coun-
cils and the like). Transformations of the occupational structure have
also been objects of struggle. From the working class' point of view, such
struggles have often centered on preventing changes in the technical divi-
sion of labor which eliminate skilled jobs; from the capitalist class' point
of view, such struggles have centered on using technology and the occupa-
tional structure as part of a strategy of social control.36 In both cases,
the structure of occupations has been an object of struggle. Finally,
struggles over the class structure itself constitute in some sense the
ultimate objective of class conflict. A socialist revolution is above all a
revolutionary restructuring of the class structure. But struggles over the
class structure are not limited to revolutionary transformation: they also
comprise a central aspect of capitalist development itself. The classic
example of such struggle is the destruction of the petty bourgeoisie in the
course of capitalist development, first through such things as enclosures
which destroyed much of the agrarian petty bourgeoisie, and later
through capitalist competition which destroyed the artisanal petty bour-
geoisie and is now making considerable inroads on the retail trade petty
bourgeoisie as well. Perhaps more importantly in the present context,
class struggles have directly influenced the shape and size of the contra-
dictory class locations near the working class. On the one hand, the
expansion and differentiation of a managerial structure is at least in part a
response to the imperatives of domination within large scale capitalist
production (and not simply the imperatives of technical coordination).37
On the other hand, the need of capital to control the labor process has
probably led to a systematic attempt at reducing the degree of control
overthe labor process and thus to a contraction of the semi-autonomous
employee category.38
Taking all of these relations of determination together generates the

dialectical model of determination symbolically represented in Figure 4.
Thismodel is a dialectical model, not simply a structuralist model, since
classstruggle has the critical capacity of transforming the conditions of
its own determination. The structural determinations systematically
impose constraints - limits and selections - but those constraints are not
staticallyfixed and they do not define a unique course of social develop-
ment. Conscious practices of classes - the class struggle in its broadest
sense - act on those structures, displacing and transforming those con-
straintsand thus changing the possible forms of class practices in the
future.
201
Toward A Model of Class Formation
The overarching thesis of this essay has been that class structure cannot
be considered simply a typology of occupational categories, regardless of
how refined that typology attempts to be. Class and occupation are
different dimensions of social structure, and any serious attempt at
understanding the dynamics of social change must try to theorize the
relationship between these dimensions rather than collapsing one onto
the other. Once the distinction is rigorously made between class and
occupation, between the social relations of production and the technical
division of labor, we can then embark on the task of linking the two
within a general model of determination of class formation.
The schematization in Figure 4 is only a preliminary step at elaborating

such a model. As it stands, this model should be viewed as a kind of road
map for empirical/historical research, a guide to the salient questions
that must be posed rather than an inventory of the substantive answers to
those questions. In particular, as a formal model the account fails to
specify the actual contents of the limits, selections, mediations and trans-
formations. Research is needed to establish how broadly or narrowly class
structuresconstrain forms of class formation, and how those limits vary
systematically with the shape of the class structure. We need to know
under what conditions the occupational structure acts as a selection
determinant that reinforces class formation or undermines it, and pre-
cisely how the occupational structure selects forms of class struggle from
within the limits established by class formation. And, of course, it is only
through actual historical investigation that we can grasp the ways in
whichclass struggles concretelytransform each of the structural determi-
nants in the model. The model in Figure 4 is thus not a substitute for
research, but a way of organizing a research agenda in a theoretically
coherent manner.
202
TABLE 1:
Operational Criteria for Class Locations
Self- Have Have Job Characterized by a Lot

Employed Employees Subordinates2 of Freedom and Decisions3
Employers' yes yes

Petty bourgeoisie yes no
Managers/supervisors no no yes
Workers no no no no
Semi-autonomous
employees no no no yes
' Since 80% of all employers in the sample employed less than ten workers, it was not
possible to study a proper capitalist class location. Throughout most of the analysis
which follows, therefore, I will treat all employers as occupying a contradictory location
between the petty bourgeoisie and the capitalist class.
2 All teachers were classified as nonsupervisors regardless of their response to this
criterion (see text for explanation).
3 Jobs which the respondent claims are characterized "a lot" by both of the following
descriptions:
a) "a job that allows a lot of freedom as to how you do your work"
b) "a job that allows you to make a lot of decisions on your own".
203
TABLE 2:
Criteria Used in High and Low Estimates for Sizes of Classes
HIGH ESTIMATE LOW ESTI MATE
Semi-autonomous All nonsupervisory employees Those nonsupervisory em-

Employees who score high on both ployees who score high on the
questions concerning subjec- subjective autonomy questions
tive autonomy and whose occupation is clas-
sified as having a complex rela-
tion to data and things by the
Dictionary of Occupational
Titles (DOT) job classification
scheme.'
Small Employers Less than 50 workers. Less than 10 workers.
Managers/Supervisors
Top/middle All supervisors who also Supervisorswith say in pay
managers reportthat they have andpromotions whose occupa-
some "say in the pay and tion is classified as profession-
promotions"of their al, technical, managerial, or
subordinates.2 official.
Bottom managers/ Allsupervisors who do not Supervisorswithout say in

supervisors havea say in pay and promo- payand promotions except for
tions, plus those with say thosewhose occupation is
inpay and promotions who
laborer,or operative.
are not in upper white
collaroccupations.
Workers Allnonsupervisory employees Nonsupervisoryemployees

plussemi-autonomous em- whoscore low on either sub-
ployeeswhose occupations are jectiveautonomy question.
classifiedas noncomplex by
theDOT plus supervisors
whoseoccupations are opera-
tivesor laborers.
' TheDictionary of Occupational Titles codes
occupations in terms of their relationship
todata and to things in the following way:
relationship to things:O. setting up; 1. precision working; 2. operating-controlling; 3.
driving-operating;4. manipulating; 5. tending; 6. feeding-offbearing; 7. handling; 8.
nosignificant relationship to things.
relationship to data:O. synthesizing; 1. coordinating; 2. analysing; 3. compiling; 4.
computing; 5.copying; 6.comparing; 7- 8.no significant relationship to data.
Anindividual whose occupation scored 0 -
2on data and 0- 2or 8 on things, or
whoscored 0- 2on things and 7- 8 on
data, was classified as having a "complex"
job.
2 Thedivision between top and middle managers on the one hand, and bottom managers
andsupervisors on the other was made on the basis
of data from the I.S.R.Panel Study
ofIncome Dynamics
(1975 wave of the panel). In that study, all respondents who
statedthat they had subordinates were asked whether or not they had
any say in the
payor promotions of their subordinates. Middle/topmanagers are defined as those
supervisorswho have some say in pay and promotions; bottom-managers/supervisors
aredefined as those who do not. Theratio between top-middle managers and bottom-
manager/supervisors in the Panel Study of Income Dynamics within occupational
categorieswas used to make these estimates for the Survey of Working Conditions data.
204
TABLE 3:
Class-Occupation Distribution for Economically Active Population
A. Distribution of Occupations Within Classes (Percentages Sum Vertically)'

Employers Petty Managers/ Semi- Workers All (N)
Bourgeoisie Supervisors Autonomous
Employees
Upper white collar
Professionals 4.5 9.8 16.2 4.7 2.7 8.1 (124)
Technicians 0.9 0.0 2.7 2.4 1.9 2.1 (33)
Managers, proprietors,
and officials 70.5 30.4 16.6 3.6 0.9 13.4 (206)
Teachers2 0.0 0.0 0.0 20.2 5.7 4.6 (70)
Total 75.9 40.2 35.5 30.9 11.2 28.2 (433)
Lower white collar
Clerical 0.0 2.2 15.3 10.1 22.9 16.0 (245)
Sales 2.7 5.4 4.4 10.7 4.9 5.2 (80)
Total 2.7 7.6 19.7 20.8 27.9 21.2 (325)
Upper blue collar
Craftspeople 5.4 9.8 13.4 16.7 11.3 12.1 (185)
Foremen 0.9 0.0 7.3 0.0 0.0 2.5 (39)
Total 6.3 9.8 20.7 16.7 11.3 14.6 (224)
Lower blue collar
Operatives 0.9 8.7 13.6 18.5 28.7 19.2 (294)
Laborers3 0.9 2.2 2.2 3.0 7.4 4.3 (66)
Total 1.8 10.9 15.8 21.5 36.1 23.5 (360)
Services 1.8 3.3 7.8 9.6 13.5 9.6 (147)
Farmers4 11.6 28.3 0.6 0.6 0.2 2.9 (44)
Total 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0
(N) (112) (92) (524) (168) (637) (1533)

205
TABLE 3, continued
B. Distribution of Classes Within Occupations (Percentages Sum Horizontally)

Employers Petty Managers/ Semi- Workers Total
Employees
Upper white collar
Professionals 4.0 7.3 68.5 6.5 13.7 100.0
Technicians 3.0 0.0 45.4 12.2 39.3 100.0
and officials 38.5 13.6 42.2 2.9 2.9 100.0
Teachers2 0.0 0.0 0.0 48.6 51.5 100.0
Total 19.7 8.6 43.2 12.1 16.5 100.0
Lower white colar
Clerical 0.0 0.8 32.7 6.9 59.5 100.0
Sales 3.8 6.3 28.8 22.5 38.8 100.0
Total 0.9 2.2 31.7 10.7 54.4 100.0
Upper blue collar
Craftspeople 3.2 4.9 37.8 15.1 38.9 100.0
Foremen 2.6 0.0 97.4 0.0 0.0 100.0
Total 3.1 4.0 48.2 12.5 32.1 100.0
Lower blue collar
Operatives 0.3 2.7 24.2 10.5 62.2 100.0
Laborers3 1.5 3.0 16.7 7.6 71.2 t00.0
Total .5 2.8 22.8 10.0 63.9 100.0
Services 1.4 2.0 27.9 10.9 57.8 100.0
Farmers4 29.5 59.1 6.8 2.3 2.3 100.0
All 7.3 6.0 34.2 11.0 41.6 100.0
] See Table I for operationalization of class.

2 All teachers were classified as nonsupervisors regardless of their response to the supervision question
(see text for explanation).
3 Includes farm laborers.
4 Includes farm managers and farm owners.
206
TABLE 4:
Class-Occupation Distribution for Economically Active Population, Men Only
A. Distribution of Occupations Within Classes (Percentages Sum Vertically)~

Employees
Upper white collar
Professionals 4.0 6.7 16.8 3.6 3.1 8.8 (87)
Technicians 1.0 0.0 2.9 3.6 2.8 2.5 (25)
and officials 69.0 0.0 18.3 2.7 1.2 16.7 (166)
Teachers2 0.0 26.7 0.0 15.5 4.6 3.2 (32)
Total 74.0 33.3 38.0 25.4 11.7 31.2 (303)
Lower white collar
Clerical 0.0 0.0 6.5 1.8 8.9 5.6 (56)
Sales 3.0 6.7 30.2 13.6 4.3 5.3 (53)
Total 3.0 6.7 36.7 15.4 13.2 11.0 (105)
Upper blue collar
Craftspeople 6.0 12.0 18.3 25.5 21.5 18.4 (183)
Foremen 1.0 0.0 9.7 0.0 0.0 3.8 (38)
Total 7.0 12.0 28.0 25.5 21.5 22.3 (221)
Lower blue collar

Operatives 1.0 9.3 15.2 23.6 33.7 20.3 (202)
Laborers3 1.0 2.7 2.9 4.6 13.2 6.2 (62)
Total 2.0 12.0 18.1 28.2 46.9 26.5 (264)
Services 1.0 1.3 4.5 4.6 6.7 4.6 (46)
Farmers4 13.0 34.7 0.8 0.9 0.0 4.3 (43)
Total 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0
(N) (100) (75) (382) (110) (326) (993)

207
TABLE 4, continued

Employees
Upper white collar
Professionals 4.6 5.7 73.6 4.6 11.5 100.0
Technicians 4.0 0.0 44.0 16.0 36.0 100.0
and officials 41.6 12.1 42.2 1.8 2.4 100.0
Teachers2 0.0 0.0 0.0 53.1 46.9 100.0
Total 23.9 8.1 46.8 9.0 12.3 100.0
Lower white collar
Clerical 0.0 0.0 44.6 3.6 51.8 100.0
Sales 5.7 9.4 30.2 28.3 26.4 100.0
Total 2.8 4.6 38.6 15.6 39.4 100.0
Upper blue collar
Craftspeople 3.3 4.9 38.3 15.3 38.3 100.0
Foremen 2.6 0.0 97.4 0.0 0.0 100.0
Total 3.2 4.1 48.4 12.7 31.7 100.0
Lower blue collar
Operatives 0.5 3.5 28.7 12.9 54.5 100.0
Laborers3 1.6 3.2 17.7 8.0 69.4 100.0
Total 0.8 3.4 26.1 11.7 58.0 100.0
Services 2.2 2.2 37.0 10.9 47.8 100.0
Farmers4 30.2 60.5 7.0 0.0 2.3 100.0
All 10.1 7.6 38.5 1 1.1 32.8 100.0
X See Table I for operationalization of class.

2 All teachers were classified as nonsupervisors regardless of their response to the supervision
question
(see test for explanation).
4 Includes farm managers and farm owners.
208
TABLE 5:
Class-Occupation Distribution for Economically Active Population, Women Only
A. Distribution of Occupations Within Classes' (Percentages Sum Vertically)

Employees
Upper white collar
Professionals 8.3 23.5 14.8 6.9 2.3 6.9 (37)
Technicians 0.0 0.0 2.8 0.0 1.3 1.5 (8)
and officials 83.3 47.1 12.0 5.2 .6 7.4 (40)
Teachers2 0.0 0.0 0.0 29.3 6.8 7.0 (38)
Total 91.6 70.6 29.6 41.4 11.0 22.8 (123)
Lower white collar
Clerical 0.0 11.8 38.7 25.9 37.9 35.0 (189)
Salcs 0.0 0.0 4.9 5.2 5.5 5.0 (27)
Total 0.0 11.8 43.6 31.1 43.4 40.0 (216)
Upper blue collar 0.0 0.0 0.7 0.0 0.6 0.6 (3)
Lower blue collar
Operatives 0.0 5.9 9.2 8.6 23.5 17.0 (92)
Laborers3 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 1.3 0.7 (4)
Total 0.0 5.9 9.2 8.6 24.8 17.7 (96)
Services 8.3 11.8 16.9 19.0 20.4 18.5 (101)
Farm Managers 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.3 0.2 (1)
Total 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0
(N) (12) (17) (142) (58) (311) (540)

209
TABLE 5, continued

Employees
Upper white collar
Professionals 2.7 10.8 56.8 10.8 18.9 100.0
Technicians 0.0 0.0 50.0 0.0 50.0 100.0
and officials 25.0 20.0 42.5 7.5 5.0 100.0
Teachers2 0.0 0.0 0.0 44.7 55.3 100.0
Total 8.9 9.8 34.1 19.5 27.6 100.0
Lower white collar
Clerical 0.0 1.1 29.1 7.9 61.9 100.0
Sales 0.0 0.0 25.9 11.1 63.0 100.0
Total 0.0 0.9 28.7 8.3 62.0 100.0
Upper blue collar 0.0' 0.0 33.3 0.0 66.7 100.0
Lower blue collar
Operatives 0.0 1.1 14.1 5.4 79.4 100.0
Laborers3 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 100.0 100.0
Total 0.0 1.0 13.5 5.2 80.2 100.0
Services 1.0 2.0 23.8 10.9 62.4 100.0
Managers 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 100.0 100.0
All 2.2 3.2 26.3 10.7 57.6 100.0
RSee Table 1 for operationalization of class.

2 All teachers were classified as nonsupervisors regardless of their responses to the
supervision question
(see text for explanation).
210
NOTES
1. Frank Parkin, Class Inequality and the Political Order (New York:
Praeger, 1971),
p. 18.
2. For example, E. P. Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class (New York:
Random House, 1966).
3. For example, Nicos Poulantzas, Classes in Contemporary Capitalism (London: New
Left Books, 1975).
4. Martin Nicolaus, "Proletariat and Middle Class in Marx," Studies on the Left, no. 7,
1967; and John Urry, "Towards a Structural Theory of the Middle Class," Acta Socio-
logica, Vol. 16, no. 3, 1973.
5. Poulantzas, Classes in Contemporary Capitalism.
6. Erik Olin Wright, Class Structure and Income Inequalit,, unpublished Ph.D. disserta-
tion, University of California, Berkeley, 1976;"Class Boundaries in Advanced Capitalist
Societies," New Left Review, no. 98, pp. 3 -43; Class, Crisis, and the State (London:
New Left Books, 1978), ch. 2; Class Structure and Income Determination (New York:
Academic Press, 1979), ch. 1; "Alternative Perspectives on the Marxist Concept of
Class," Politics & Society. Vol. 9/3, 1979.
7."Surplus labor" is the general category, applicable to all class societies. It is only in a
capitalist society, however, that such labor is embodied in commodities as "exchange
values," and that the surplus labor represented in the surplus product takes the form of
"surplus value." Much of Marx's discussion of capitalism in Volume I of Capital is
devoted to explaining precisely how surplus labor takes the form of surplus value in
capitalism.
8. The technical defense of this account is at the heart of Marx's labor theory of value. The
basic claim that surplus labor is appropriated through the difference between the labor
embodied in the wage bundle and the labor embodied in the social product, however,
does not hinge on the general adequacy of the labor theory of value as a framework for
understandingthe rate of profit and other aspects of the accumulation process. All that
is necessary to defend the description of this mechanism as a mechanism of exploitation
isto demonstrate that the wage bundle in fact embodies a certain quantity of social labor
and that this is less than the social labor embodied in the total social product. Thevery
fact of the existence of a surplus product controlled by the capitalist class which was
produced by the labor of workers establishes this. Fora general discussion of the labor
theoryof value and its relationship to the analysis of class,see Wright, "Currentdebates
on the Labor Theory of Value," New Left Review (forthcoming).
9.Note that these are referred to as aspects of production relations, not types of relations.
Thereis no meaningful sense in which they canexist independently of each other. They
representthree intrinsically interlinked aspects of the social relations of production,
forming a unity, albeit an internally differentiated (or structured) unity.
10.Relational concepts of classand inequality should be contrasted to gradational notions.
In gradationalnotions, classesdiffer in the degree of various attributes such as income,
status,education, wealth. The names of classes thus reflect purely quantitative locations:
upper class, upper middle class, middle class, lower middle class, lower class,etc. In
relationalnotions, on the other hand, classes are defined byvirtue of their location
withinsocial relations of domination/subordination. The names of classes, therefore,
reflect the qualitative nature of the locations within such relations: lord and serf;
slavemasterand slave; capitalist and worker. Forextended discussions of the distinction
betweenrelational and gradational conceptions of class, see S. Ossowski, Class Struc-
turein theSocial Consciousness (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1963), and Wright,
ClassStructure and Income Determination, Ch. 1.
11.Commercial airline pilots pose an additional problem for a classanalysis. Their incomes
may besufficiently high that they canno longer beseen as "exploited" in the convention-
211
al marxist sense of the term. In such cases there is a contradiction between their
location within production relations and their location within exchange relations. Such
nonexploited wage-laborers should not be considered part of the working class, even if
at the level of production relations they have no meaningful control over their labor
process. For the purposes of this paper this additional complication will be ignored, and
we will examine class locations as they are determined solely at the level of the social
relations of production.
12. The complex relationship of intellectuals to working class social movements reflects this
contradictory determination of their class location. For a discussion of the relationship
of intellectuals to the working class, see Wright, "Race, Class and Income Inequality,"
American Journal of Sociology, May, 1978.
13.1 am currently engaged in a large scale, cross-national study of class structure in the
United States, Italy, Sweden and Great Britain which will generate systematic data on
class relations directly based on the theoretical categories discussed above. Results from
this research should be available by late 1981.
14. The central issue here is that teachers (in most circumstances) are not engaged in the
exploitation of labor power. While they do control the activity of students, they do not
control the labor of direct producers (workers).
15. Since this chart is based on data limited to the economically active, working population,
it cannot be considered a complete class map of the American population. Unemployed
people, students, retired people, and nonworking housewives are not included in the
data. It is, of course, an important theoretical and empirical problem to understand the
relationship of such positions outside the market to class relations in capitalist society.
The data available for the present study, however, do not allow such questions to be
investigated. See Wright, Class Crisis and the State, 91 - 96, for a discussion of the class
location of these positions.
16. Since so-called "discouraged workers" as well as temporarily unemployed workers are
not included in the Survey of Working Conditions, and since most such people would
be drawn from the working class, these estimates almost certainly underestimatethe size
of the American working class, even if we assume that all of the other criteria are
adequate.
17. These results are quite consistent with the findings of Reeve Vanneman, "TheOccupation-
al Composition of American Classes," American Journal of Sociology, 82, 4, 1977,
pp. 783 - 808, in a statistical study of the occupational composition of "classes."Vanne-
man used cluster analysis to establish the closeness of different occupational categories
to each other in terms of two basic variables: residential segregation and intergeneral
mobility. While, as Vanneman admits, these clusters of occupations cannot be consid-
ered "classes" in analytical terms since they are purely statistical aggregations, never-
theless his results are very suggestive. He found that lower white vollar occupations are
much "closer"to traditional blue collar occupations in terms of both residential segrega-
tion and intergenerational mobility than they were to other white collar occupations. To
the extent that location within the social relations of production establishes limits of
variation on such things as intergenerational mobility, it would be expected that occupa-
tions with similar class distributions would have similar mobility patterns. Vanneman's
study supports such a proposition.
18. It is always possible, of course, that the differences between men and women in Tables 4
and 5 are a consequence of the level of aggregation of occupations. With more detailed
distinctions within broad occupational categories it could turn out that while men and
women have different occupational distributions, within a given occupational category
(position within the technical division of labor) they have the same class distribution.
The observation that occupational levels of proletarianization vary with sex, therefore,
must be seen as tentative until more elaborate data on class and occupation is available.
19. In some ways, "class struggle" is even more difficult to define rigorously than class
structure. Throughout this discussion I will use the term in its broadest possible sense to
212
include both social conflicts between self-consciously organized classes and conflicts
which are directly implicated in the formation and transformation of classes, even if the
"combatants" in the conflict are not strictly speaking class actors. To use Przeworski's
formulation, class struggle must be understood as involving both the struggle between
classes and the struggle over class. It should also be noted that throughout this discus-
sion I will use the terms class struggle and class conflict interchangeably. See Adam
Przeworski, "The Process of Class Formation: From Karl Kautsky's The Class Struggle
to Recent Debates," Politics and Society, 7, 4, 1977.
20. There has been considerable debate in recent years over this distinction. Traditionally,
marxists have tended to identify a class-in-itself with the economic location of classes,
and a class-for-itself with the political and ideological formation of classes. This has lead
some marxists, most notably Nicos Poulantzas to reject the distinction between in-itself
and for-itself altogether. As Poulantzas has correctly emphasized, even the structural
definition of classes requires political and ideological elements. the distinction class-in-
itself/for-itself, however, does not hinge on the distinction between political-ideological
relations and economic relations. Rather, the theoretical impulse for the distinction is to
distinguish classes as positions from classes as organized social forces. It is perfectly
consistent to sustain this distinction and to argue that class positions themselves need to
be analyzed in terms of political and ideological dimensions. For Poulantzas' position,
see his Political Power and Social Class (London; New Left Books, 1973) and Classes in
Contemporary Capitalism (London: New Left Books, 1975).
21. Stated in somewhat different terms, a class-in-itself is defined fundamentally by the social
relations between classes; class-for-itself by the social relations within a class. The social
relations between classes define the essential structure within capitalist enterprises; the
social relations within classes define the essential structures of the class organizations
across enterprises.
22. Goran Therbon develops a notion of organizations which is very similar to the one
argued here, in the context of an analysis of the capitalist state. He writes: "In order to
understand the class character of the state apparatus, then, we must begin to develop a
new approach to the study of organization. We should view it not as a goal-oriented
subject in an environment but as a formally bounded system of structured processes
within a global system of societal processes." See What Does the Ruling Class Do
When It Rules? (London: New Left Books, 1978), p. 37.
23. Note that these social relations are still relations between positions rather than simply
between individual persons. Of course, the positions are filled by real people, and it
would be absurd to argue that the subjective orientation of the actors within positions is
unimportant for understanding the character of the relations themselves. But to the
extent that these relations are structured systematically, they must be understood as
constituting relations among "empty places" as such.
24. The conventional device of treating organizations as "actors" analogous to human
organisms becomes very difficult to sustain when the organization-environment di-
chotomy is undermined. If the world were really structured as depicted in neoclassi-
al economics - pure competition plus atomistic individuals - then perhaps organiza-
tions could be viewed as organisms interacting with an external environment, but once
organizations interpenetrate each other and social relations cross-cut organizational
boundaries, the metaphor begins to obscure more than it clarifies.
25. See James O'Connor, The Fiscal Crisis of the State (New York: St. Martin's Press,
1973).
26. For an extended discussion of income determination and class relations, see Wright,
Class Structure and Income Determination, chs. 3 and 4; Wright, "Race, Class and
Income Inequality," AJS; and Wright and Luca Perrone, "Marxist Class Categories and
Income Inequality," American Sociological Review 42, 1977.
27. There is a fundamental difference between talking about strata within classes and strata
within society. "Status groups" in the Weberian sense are always conceived as categories
213
within the society at large. Occupational strata in the sense discussed above must be
understood as the structural basis for divisions within classes. Their efficacy in society is
derived from the location within classes, not alongsiMe classes.
28. Sexual divisions also are heavily implicated in divisions within the technical division of
labor. Sex-typing of occupations is if anything a more pervasive feature of capitalist
societies than race- and ethnic-typing. However, such sexual divisions do not create the
same kinds of fractioning of classes as do racial and ethnic divisions, since men and
women workers are bound together within family units. While the linkage between the
occupational structure and the sexual division of labor is certainly important for many
theoretical and political issues, it is of less relevance in the present context.
29. Ronald Aminzade, Class Struggle and Social Change in 19th
Century Toulouse, Ph. D.
Dissertation, Dept. of Sociology, University of Michigan, 1978.
30. For a much more extended discussion of modes of determination, see Wright, Class,
Crisisand the State, ch. 1. For an application of them to the analysis of income inequal-
ity, see Wright, Class Structure and Income Determination, ch. 3.
31. For illustrations of models which include some of these additional elements, see Wright,
Class, Crisis and the State, pp. 27, 165, 223.
32.This is an example where the present discussion is seriously incomplete. While it may be
truethat the class structure places broad limits on the forms of political class formation,
the role of political and ideological factors as selections within those limits may be of
muchmore theoretical interest than the limits themselves. For example, while it may be
truethat the existence of large numbers of people in contradictory class locations may
makethe political formation of the working class as a revolutionary class more difficult,
it is probably the case that the forms of the state and ideology constitute the decisive
factorswhich turn that difficulty into an impossibility. Thus,from the point of view of
socialist strategy, it may be more important to attempt to shift the selection processes
thanexpand the structural limits within which those selections take place.
33. Itshould be noted that this formulation is slightly different from my earlier discussions
ofclass formation and class struggle, in which I argued that class structure directly
limitedclass struggle while class formation simply acted as a selection mechanism.
34.Adam Przeworski, "AHistory of Western European Socialism," Unpublished manus-
cript, Political Science Dept., University of Chicago, 1978.
35.Gosta Esping-Andersen, in Social Democ'racl and Working-Class Politics in the
Modern Wel[are State: Denmark and Suweden, University of Wisconsin-Madison,
Ph.D. thesis, Department of Sociology, 1978, an extremely interesting comparison of
theDanish and Swedish Social Democratic Parties, has argued that the critical differen-
cesin the strategies of the two parties can be explained by the different class structures
whichthey faced. The Danish party, he argues, faced a much larger traditional petty
bourgeoisieand was therefore forced to make a number of important compromises in its
policiesin order to obtain petty bourgeois votes. The Swedish Party, on the other hand,
couldrely more exclusively on a strictly working class electoral base and thus could
pursuea more consistently working class (although reformist) politics. The result of
thesedifferences, according to Esping-Anderson, was that the Danish Party was forced
toadopt policies which ultimately eroded part of its working class
support, whereas the
SwedishParty was able to sustain its working class base in a much more stable manner.
Thisis a good example of how class structure acts as a selection determination of class
struggleswithin limits set by the forms of class organization (reformistworking class
partypolitics).
36.See Michael Burawoy, "Towardsa Marxist Theory of the Labor Process," Politics &
Society,8: 3- 4, 1978; Harry Braverman,Labor and Monopoly Capital (New York:
MonthlyReview Press, 1974);Katherine Stone, "The Origins of Job Structures in the
SteelIndustry," Review
ofRadcal Political Economic's, Summer, 1974; and Steven
Marglin, "What Do Bosses Do?" Review ofRadical Political Economics,Summer, 1974.
214
37. For a discussion of the elaboration of managerial structures as part of a response to class
struggle, see Dan Clawson, Class Struggle and the Rise of Bureaucracy, unpublished
Ph.D. dissertation, Sociology Dept., SUNY, Stonybrook, 1978; Richards Edwards,
Contested Terrain (New York: Basic Books, 1979); and Wright, Class, Crisis and the
State, pp. 67- 71.
38. To my knowledge no really good systematic data exists on changes in the degree of
control of workers over the labor process over time. As should be clear from the
discussion of occupation and class earlier, it is impossible to use occupational statistics
to answer this question. However, some indirect measures, as discussed in Wright and J.
Singlemann, "Proletarianization in Advanced Capitalist Societies," Institute for Re-
search on Poverty Discussion Paper, University of Wisconsin, 1978, do indicate that
within specific sectors of the economy, there seems to be a tendency for autonomy to be
reduced over time.
Theory and Society 9 (1980) 177-214

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Theory and Society, vol. 9, núm. 1, 1980, pp. 177-214.

Class and Ocupation.

Wright, Erik Olin.

Dirección estable: https://www.aacademica.org/erik.olin.wright/53

CLASS AND OCCUPATION

ERIK OLIN WRIGHT

Sociologists have generally regarded "class"and "occupation" as occupy-

Marxist theory adopts a totally different stance towards the relationship

Department of Sociology, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Before developing the theoretical argument itself, however, it will be

In part two, I will then elaborate more systematically the conceptual

An Empirical Investigation of Class and Occupation

In order to study the empirical relationship between class positions and

Theoretical Criteria for Class Locations

Within marxist theory that overarching principle is the concept of

social location. To emphasize that such exploitation involves the appro-

Given this understanding of class and exploitation, the task of decoding

The word "control"in each of these dimensions must be understood in

Thedistinctive capitalist mechanism of exploitation operates through the

If the capitalist social system is analyzed at the highest level of abstrac-

Secondly, the simple model of polarized class locations is inadequate for

Capitalist mode of Simple commodity

f ....-- Contradictory locations

Figure 1: The basic class relations of capitalist society.

units of production. Such situations of noncorrespondence between the

Three such contradictory locations are particularly important in advan-

Itis important to understand why these positions are called "contradic-

daries, a second problem in operationalizing class relations centers on the

Inorder to investigate the relationship between class locations and occu-

(b)Managers/supervisors. This category is operationalized by the simple

(c) Semi-autonomous employees. Respondents were given a list of des-

Size of Class Locations

Figure2: Distribution of the economically active population into

class,when understood in terms of common positions within the

Table3 presents the distributions of occupations within class

Severalgeneral conclusions can be drawn from this table.

Taking these various findings together, it is clearly inappropriate to

A final general conclusion from these data centers on differences be-

A Model of Determination of Class and Occupation

Whilethe decoding and analysis of class structure plays an important role

The rest of this paper will try to chart

Toexplore this intersection, we will need

therefore empty places within organizations. A class-for-itself, on the

This way of understanding the intersection of class and organization

Firm A Trade Firm B

o Capitalist class position

.... Relations of solidarity/cooperation (relations within classes)

Organizations which define class locations

I- organizations which define class formation

Figure 3: Classes within organizations and organizations within classes.

A simple illustration may help to clarify this conception of class

In Figure 3A classes have been determined within capitalist firms,but

Inthe analysis of the process by which classes within

The occupational structure is implicated in many of these sources of

Certainoccupational positions have much more favorable market situa-

Suchoccupational divisions are further reinforced when advantages in

As a result of the intersection of market and ideological relations with the

(2) Occupational strata within classes may systematically reinforce other

(4) Occupational groupings may, under certain circumstances, function

occupational associations for factory-wide struggles of workers. In con-

These complex ways in which the technical division of labor impinges on

A Model of Determination of Class, Occupation and Organization

In order to recast this argument as a formal model of determination, it is